1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a paper skew detection apparatus for use in an ink-jet printer, and more particularly, to a paper skew detection apparatus in an ink-jet printer capable of detecting paper skew by measuring the amount of light emitted by a plurality of light emitters.
2. Description of the Related Art
Ink-jet printers print images by spraying ink onto a paper sheet while an ink cartridge installed on a carriage is moving horizontally. FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an example of a conventional ink-jet printer. Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional ink-jet printer has a paper feeding unit 11 that loads paper P and feeds each sheet into the printer for printing. The paper P loaded in the paper feeding unit 11 is transported to the bottom of an ink-jet print head by a linefeed roller (not shown) rotatably driven by a linefeed motor (not shown).
A carriage 13 having an ink cartridge 12 to hold ink is driven by a driving unit 14 to reciprocate linearly over the paper P. The ink-jet print head sprays ink to form an image on the paper P. The paper P on which the image has been formed is transported to a paper delivering table 15 by a delivery roller and is delivered.
In the conventional ink-jet printer configured above, a user may not place the paper P correctly into the paper feeding unit 11, or the paper P may be misfed into the printer. Then, the ink-jet print head forms an image by directing ink onto the skewed paper P. When subject to paper skew in this way, the paper P is wrinkled or torn during a printing process. Furthermore, the paper P is not delivered to the paper delivering table 15 in a desired state (indicated by line A) but in a slanted state (indicated by line B), thus causing the ink-jet print head to print the image in a skewed or slanted position on the paper P.